About twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said, “The only thing that is constant is change.” It makes me wonder what he would have thought of 2020. The year in which the only thing besides change that seems constant, is the spread of COVID. We still haven’t seemed to rid ourselves of it, so the changes to our daily lives have been endless.
“The only thing that is constant is change.” –Heraclitus
In our state alone, the rules of social distancing have been modified numerous times. Just last week, I learned I’ll have to take a COVID test if I want to see my family in their state. Quite a few of my friends work in education, and their understanding of what the coming school year will look like is different day to day. And my friends and sisters with children are contemplating homeschooling in September, and wondering what toll this will take on their careers.
Everyone and everything is in some form of transition right now.
Only, that is not all we are carrying. As author Shauna Niequist shared on social media last week, we all have at least one “AND ALSO” as well. Something else difficult that we’re holding in addition to all the Pandemic has brought us. A struggle, a loss, perhaps a change totally unrelated to COVID—yet made more challenging because of it. All the hard things in life didn’t take a vacation because a virus decided to travel around the globe. Our “AND ALSO’s” compounded with all that is going on in our world, means
Life is really heavy right now.
This is the most collectively trying time of our lives so far. At the beginning of it, we coped by baking bread and eating comfort food. But now that we are four months in, this feels like our new normal. And it’s all a little much.
The coping mechanisms we are accustomed to, aren’t going to get us through whatever lies ahead. This is not a bandaid that is getting ripped off, it is a slow burn that is exposing some of our deepest fears and wearing down at our emotional reserves. So the way that we navigate this must look different from how we’ve handled stress before.
This is not a bandaid that is getting ripped off, it is a slow burn that is exposing some of our deepest fears and wearing down at our emotional reserves.
Being from New England (perhaps it’s true if you’re from anywhere in the US), I was raised to pick myself up when I was knocked down and to keep going. I was taught to suppress my feelings in difficult times. To push them down, and push forward.
To be strong.
But let me tell you friends, over the years I’ve found that feeling our pain doesn’t make us weak. Naming our struggles, pains, and losses—grieving what we need to—isn’t wimpy. Rather, taking the time to enter into our own pain and struggle is often the very thing that makes us strong enough to keep going. To tell ourselves our own pain is real, that it matters, is to enter the process of healing. To ignore and suppress it, is to stunt our own growth as people.
Friends, I don’t know what your “AND ALSO’s” are, but I know they matter. You matter. If you feel tempted in this time to ignore or suppress your feelings over what you’re going through—please resist it. We don’t know how long this Pandemic season will last, so we need to do our best to process and begin to heal as we go. We need to reach out for help now, rather than wait.
Feeling our pain doesn’t make us weak.
The surprising way to continue to live in the midst of difficult change, is to be real about how it is affecting us. To journal about it, talk to our friends about it, go to counseling, and to spend time in prayer. To acknowledge this is a difficult time, and each day, to give ourselves grace.
What is your “AND ALSO?”
What pain or hard things do you need to let yourself feel right now?
Feeling a little adrift in this strange, new normal of being at home? Sign up for my email list and get your free copy of my Social Distancing Survival Guide: Everyday Routines. Sign up here.
